The Flying Mystics of Tibetan Buddhism

with Glenn Mullin

Thursday, February 9, 20177:00pm – 9:00pm

The urge to fly has transfixed human imagination with a steady, irresistible charm for millennia. In Buddhist thought, flight is within our potential as human beings. With advanced spiritual development come supernatural powers such as flying, levitation, or the ability to walk through the sky as some walk on a mountain path. Indo-Tibetan literature is filled with accounts of the phenomena, and biographical accounts of the great lineage masters often includes a section on occasions when flying was called for. Similarly, Indo-Tibetan Buddhist artists frequently draw from flying anecdotes in their paintings and sculptural works.

​Glenn H. Mullin is a Tibetologist, Buddhist writer, translator of classical Tibetan literature, and teacher of Tantric Buddhist meditation. He divides his time between writing, teaching, meditating, and leading tour groups to the power places of Nepal and Tibet.

Glenn lived in the Indian Himalayas between 1972 and 1984, where he studied philosophy, literature, meditation, yoga, and the enlightenment culture under thirty-five of the greatest living masters of the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism. His two principal tantric gurus were the late great masters Kyabje Ling Dorjechang and Kyabje Trijang Dorjechang, who were best known as Yongdzin Che Chung, the two main gurus of the present Dalai Lama. The list of Glenn’s other teachers and initiation masters includes the Dalai Lama, Sakya Trizin Rinpoche, Kalu Rinpoche, Ngakpa Yeshe Dorje Rinpoche, Tai Situ Rinpoche, Khenchen Konchok Gyaltsen, Geshe Ngawang Dargyey, Geshey Rabten, and Gongsar Tulku.